


This World Keeps Spinning

by ThatRavenclawBitch



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/pseuds/ThatRavenclawBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of his son and disintegration of his marriage, Calum Gold believes he has nothing left to live for until a chance encounter with a runaway bride who proves just as eager for escape as he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This World Keeps Spinning

It’s the day, he tells himself. He has never handled it well, but it will pass. He will go on as he always has. Only Calum Gold can’t quite muster the strength to go to the pawnshop today. It stays closed, the dark windows barely registering to the townspeople who pass it without so much as a glance or a thought for the missing pawnbroker.

He tries tinkering about the house instead, setting to work on all those countless projects he’s put off for months or years. The bedroom door hinges squeak, not that anyone ever comes to the house but him. It’s not as though the sound will disrupt anyone else sleeping in the middle of the night. He is the only one here.

Downstairs, the kitchen faucet leaks. He stands in front of the tap, staring at it for a solid fifteen minutes trying, and failing, to muster up the energy to care. But something in him has finally snapped free. He doesn’t care. He can no longer pretend to.

He sinks to his knees on the kitchen floor and sobs as he hasn’t sobbed in five painfully long years. He cannot numb himself this time. The dreary day in day out drudge of putting on a brave face and pretending he isn’t desperately broken has finally worn on him to the point where he cannot continue.

Perhaps it’s the weather, unseasonably cold for June; the sky is gray and oppressive threatening rain. He cannot handle rain on today of all days. It’s been five years to the day since he buried his son, his precious Neal taken from him at just fifteen by a driver who’d had one too many to drink. Milah hadn’t stuck around after that and he hadn’t blamed her. She’d only barely tolerated him for the sake of their son and once he was gone there was nothing left to tether them together. They’d barely spoken in the days after, each alone and isolated in their grief. She’d slipped away in the middle of the night and divorce papers had surfaced a few weeks later. 

In the blink of an eye he’d gone from being a husband and a father to being nothing, no one. There’s not a person alive who would miss him if he ended it all today and quite a few who might celebrate the fact.

It is that thought that finally makes up his mind. He’s dragged on for five long years and for what? There’s nothing for him in this world any longer, no reason to prolong his misery. No finish line he’s striving to reach. He hasn’t been happy since the last time he saw Neal’s face and he will never see it again. It isn’t just the day. It’s the years. It’s the lifetime. It’s the long stretch of time that lies before him with no end in sight. He wants it to end. 

And so he drives, out past the cemetery where his son’s corpse lies beneath the cold earth, a bundle of dying flowers decaying against the headstone. Out past the marker that tells him he is now leaving Storybrooke, Maine. He drives for an hour, stopping for gas at a ramshackle station on a back road before he continues on. Finally, he turns off, stopping in a field of wildflowers not far from a green hill. It’s a beautiful spot, the rolling clouds and whipping wind only causing the green grass to stand out in starker contrast to the darkening skies, the yellow flowers seeming to glow in the dimming light. He’d like to die somewhere beautiful, have his last thoughts on something peaceful. 

He pulls the garden hose from the boot of his old Cadillac, stuffing one end in the exhaust pipe and trailing the other up through the passenger side window. Then he climbs back into the driver’s seat, rolling up the windows and starting the car.

He reclines his seat slightly, settling in for the end. Might as well be comfortable as he drifts away.

The exhaust fumes fill the cabin and he closes his eyes, picturing his son’s face. He should be 20 years old now, a man. He should have gone off to college. Neal was always a smart boy and Gold had such high hopes for him. But all those hopes were dashed. His son never got to go to college, never fell in love, never had the chance at a family of his own. Fifteen is too young to die and parents should never bury their children. 

It's getting harder to breathe, his vision blurring and Gold embraces the feeling. It shouldn't be long now. Not long until the silent, lonely torture that has become his life is finally at an end. He blinks, a flash of white catching the corner of his eye and he looks out the passenger's side window despite himself. He doesn't want an interruption, doesn't want to lose his nerve. A voice that sounds suspiciously like his father's taunts him that only a failure such as he could botch his own suicide. 

There is a small figure in white running full speed across the field toward his parked car. _An angel_ his muddled mind provides. But no, he doesn’t believe in such things and even if he did, he’s sure salvation is not in his future. The most he can hope for is to slip away peacefully, to not be a burden on anyone. There is no afterlife calling to him.

But he can’t deny the sight as the figure draws closer. His head is hazy now, the smoky fumes making him cough and his eyes water.

What is he doing?

In a split second decision, he opens the driver's side door, the cool, fresh air rushing into his grateful lungs and clearing his mind at once as the exhaust pours out of the cabin.

He stands, taking deep breaths as he leans his hands against the side of the car. The skies have finally acquiesced, the rain starting to splash down in fat droplets that cool the heated skin of his face and neck. The figure is close enough now that he can see it was not some death induced vision. It is just a girl in a long white dress, the wide, flowing skirt hiked up in her hands as she pulls to a stop several yards away from him.

They stare at each other for a long, tense moment. It's surreal, standing here in this field that he'd thought to be his doom and looking over the roof of his car into a face just as lost and terrified as his own. 

She is a bride if the white dress and veil are any indication. Her feet are bare, toes sinking in to the increasingly damp earth. The rain continues to splatter down on them and she lets out a shiver, her bare shoulders and arms covered in gooseflesh and her dark auburn curls clinging to her skin. She glances over her shoulder once like a frightened rabbit, letting out a gasp as several dark suited figures crest the hill behind them. Then she looks back to him with wide, pleading eyes.

She shivers again in the cold, her tiny feet making squelching noises in the mud as she shifts from one foot to the other. Without a word, with barely more than a thought, he nods. A brilliant smile breaks across the girl's face and Gold thinks it might be the first truly beautiful thing he's seen in 5 years. She stumbles the few yards to the passenger's side door and opens it, climbing in and pulling the soggy skirt of her dress behind her. Gold quickly grabs the hose from the exhaust pipe and abandons it in the field behind the Cadillac before joining the bride in the cab of the car. 

She looks at him before glancing back out the window at the wedding party on the hill. 

"Can I have a ride?" she asks tremulously. 

"Where to?" he replies.

"Anywhere you want to go, so long as it's away from here." 

Gold just nods, pushing the car into drive and making his way for the interstate. The girl shivers once again, a puddle forming around her on the leather car seat. He keeps one hand on the wheel, shrugging out of his suit jacket with the other before offering it to her. She smiles gratefully before wrapping his jacket around herself and holding her hands up to the heating vent. 

"I'm Belle by the way," she says as they pull on to the road that leads back to Storybrooke. He's not sure where else to go at the moment. 

"Gold," he replies. Belle smiles again her blue eyes sparkling as the rain patters against the windshield.

"You saved my life today," she sighs, leaning back against the car seat and burrowing further into her borrowed jacket. He glances at her sidelong, the constricting feeling in his chest that has been suffocating him all day easing just a bit at her presence. 

He doesn't say anything more, just faces the road ahead of them. 


End file.
